


Grunnien Roast

by ellebb



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Cooking, Food, Gen, and I felt the game didn't really give a resolution to the conflict between Drack and Ryder, bonding over cooking, post-Hunting The Archon, so here is this, where I made the decision that really upsets Drack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 23:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10559892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellebb/pseuds/ellebb
Summary: On the way to her cabin, Mira passed by what sounded like a smothered grenade going off in the galley.She paused.“Dammit all.”It was Drack.  Mira shifted on her feet, halfway on her way to deciding to just walk on as if she hadn’t heard.  They hadn’t talked since the Archon’s ship.  A week ago.





	

On the way to her cabin, Mira passed by what sounded like a smothered grenade going off in the galley. **  
**

She paused.

“Dammit all.”

It was Drack.  Mira shifted on her feet, halfway on her way to deciding to just walk on as if she hadn’t heard.  They hadn’t talked since the Archon’s ship.  A week ago.

She didn’t blame him.  She could apologize all she wanted, but she knew no amount of words would make it up to him.  And that hurt, honestly.  It hurt a lot.  It hurt to pass him by the OPS table, to back out of medbay when she saw the krogan and Lexi already chatting inside.  To have him pretend to be busy modding his guns or something when it came time to EVA, and have to pretend like she didn’t notice.  It hurt to know that she’d hurt him.

The krogan people couldn’t afford loses like the one she’d dealt them.  But it had been their scouts or Pathfinder Raeka, and Mira had made the decision.  That’s what it was to be in command.  Make shitty decisions that were barely justifiable.  She wondered how many times her father had had to do that.  He would know how to handle this.  How to be a professional, and not feel like utter shit afterward.  Or maybe he’d just been better at hiding it.

Another metallic clatter, and Mira set her shoulders to walk on.  Until she noticed that the galley hatch had been open the entire time.  And she made the mistake of glancing in right when Drack glanced up.

“Hey,” she said automatically, stopping in her tracks despite her intention to just go on.

The old man said nothing.  A long pause drew out between them, spanning the galley and the hallway.  And even beyond that, it seemed.

Drack twisted his great bulk around, and Mira saw that he’d been in the middle of prepping a meal.  Another thing that hurt.  She and the old man had quickly become the favorite pair in the dinner rotation; Drack had an incredible finesse with protein, knowing how to turn just about any cut of any species into a succulent, dripping with fat and juices, and perfectly medium-rare delight.  Mira knew the ends and outs of pretty much every spice combination the Milky Way had produced, and had long since mastered the art of making the meanest little cloned tubers into buttery, garlicky, melt-in-your-mandibles mashed potato-like substances.

But she and Drack hadn’t cooked together since… The Thing.  And the rest of the crew, though they knew not to say anything, were silently jonesing something awful for a meal made by their gastronomic experts.

Drack stared at her, and Mira back at him.  He exhaled, his wide and flat nostrils flaring.  He waved a dark, bulbous Binthu pod at her.

“Get in here and help me with this,” he barked at her.

Mira started. “Sure,” she said.  Even though it hadn’t really been a request.

She stepped into the galley and took the pod from the krogan.  The old man coughed and shifted to gesture to the small table that took up a lot the galley’s space; it was amazing, really, that Drack could maneuver about the compact area with as much grace as he did.  On the table lay the bleeding haunch of a large animal seemingly covered in lavender velvet.

“Grunnien,” Drack harumphed, impaling the kitchen knife he’d been fumbling in his enormous mits into a cutting board. “Need Binthu to tenderize and add flavor, but damn tiny things are a bitch to get into.”

Mira glanced at the way the old man rubbed his blocky digits.  The prosthetics must be acting up again, affecting his dexterity.  Another reason why they made a good team in the kitchen.

“Binthu, that pseudo pepper stuff… and onions?” Mira asked.  She rummaged around in a cabinet for the box of gloves she’d “borrowed” from Lexi.

“Onions,” Drack agreed. “Lots and lots of onions.  That roast’ll have enough juice to make ‘em into candy.”

Mira laughed, only slightly forced. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

The conversation petered off, and the two of them settled into silently working.  She wasn’t gonna lie; it was awkward.  The space was small, and the Thing between them was huge, and they couldn’t avoid having to make small requests for this or that knife or whatever.  

But there was something soothing about prepping food.  The work of cracking open Binthu pods and shelling the inner spice seeds.  Those repetitive actions of slicing onions into perfectly matching, perfectly thin rings.  And Drack obviously found skinning and trimming carcasses to be therapeutic.  There was an art to that too; you had to leave enough fat on to render out beautiful, silky juices and flavor, but there couldn’t be too much or the rendering wouldn’t happen at a good rate, and the meat would get an uneven cook.

Then Drack slammed something, probably the whole roast on the table, making the cabinet doors rattle.  Mira jumped, and turned around.

The old man wasn’t looking at her, rubbing at his neck plates with a hand covered in Grunnien blood.  He didn’t seem to notice, or care, about the blood.

Drack snorted violently. “Look.  This really isn’t my style, all this sneaking around the subject.  So, I’m just gonna say: I know you had your reasons.  But that was shitty.  Maybe that math made sense to you, but it didn’t to me.  And I didn’t like it, but I can put it aside for the mission.”

Mira put down her knife, and cleared her throat. “Drack, if you want to leave--”

“Shit, I told you-- I’m not going anywhere,” he barked back. “This ship right here is the best way for me to kick top-tier kett ass, so I’m staying.  For the cluster.”

“Okay,” she said. She leaned against the counter, letting her eyes slide to the side, avoidant. “But you know-- It didn’t make me happy.  I hated having to do that, and I know why you’re pissed at me, so--”

“So what?  You want to make up for it somehow?” Drack interrupted, his low rumble sharpening. “You can’t make up for lives.  Trust me, I know.  You do better next time, and we’ll see--”

“ _You know_ ,” Mira snapped, pushing up from her counter and swiveling to the krogan. “ _You_ were the one, right, who told me times like this, you’re gonna end up losing people.  You’re gonna end up making sacrifices just to keep shit from getting truly awful.”

“And _you_ were the one who told me that everyone comes home,” he shot back.

Mira deflated.  He was right; she’d said that.  She was the one that had been appalled at the idea of… suicide runs, or whatever.

“ _You_ were the one that said we don’t make sacrifices.”

“Yeah,” she muttered, leaning back into the counter. “Yeah, I said that.  I know-- I just…”

Drack stared at her.  For a long moment they just stood there with hands covered in Grunnien juice and bits of fat, and an onion clenched in a white-knuckle fist.  It was shitty all around.  It’s not like she could go back in time, remake her decision.  And even if she could, she didn’t think it would be any different.  She’d made her bed, and the lost of Drack’s friendship and trust seemed to be the the way she’d now have to sleep in it.

Drack sighed. “Shit.  I-- look.  I said that before, about the sacrifices.  I just didn’t think it would be only my people making it.  Again.”

Mira glanced at him. “The krogan have made a lot of sacrifices.”

“ _Yeah, they have_ ,” he barked.  Then shrugged. “They have-- but only this one was up to you.  And, yeah, you’ve done a lot for us out here.”

“Doesn’t make up for it.”

“No?  You don’t think so?”

Mira shrugged, confused.  She had no idea what to say to make things right, what would just inflame the situation.  All she knew is, she wished her dad was here.  Because she was fumbling around, blind leading the blind.

Drack sighed again. “Look, I know you care about us and our problems.  I’ve seen it.  I know you’re doing your best.  This is still bullshit, mind, but--  I mean, damn, we can’t keep doing this.  This crew is losing muscle mass without a decent meal; I was staring at Kallo the other day, and he was turning flat while I was just looking at him.”

She coughed, somewhat resembling a laugh. “I think that had more to do with the krogan admiring his liver.”

Drack rumbled, deep in his gullet-- chuckling. “Well, get back to it.  This beast’s gotta sit in the oven all day.”

Mira inhaled and nodded. “Yeah.”

She turned back to the counter, picked up her knife, and went back to work.

“Shit, are you crying?” Drack asked behind her.

“No-- there’s onions.  These vacuum packed ones are always super potent.”

“Yeah, whatever.  You’re gonna have to be tougher than that if you want to be my sous chef.”

“I know-- my stomach can hardly handle how tough your meat always turns out.”

“ _Hey_!  That was hurtful.”

Mira laughed.  He wasn’t calling her “kid” again, and yeah there was still shit between them, but maybe this was a good start.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading~


End file.
